


maddie and howie's infinite playlist

by mamalovesherbagels



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: anyway this probably isn't that good, but have it anyway, but the title of it seems fitting, enjoy the canon divergence, like at all, more like a movie playlist than anything else, not really based on the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24806869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamalovesherbagels/pseuds/mamalovesherbagels
Summary: Chimney tells Bobby that since his car accident, he feels like time has just stopped. Then he meets Buck's sister a few weeks later, and suddenly it's like he can't stop going back in time.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	maddie and howie's infinite playlist

“It’s Buck’s sister,” Hen had said in a flat deadpan, as if that in itself is this big disqualifier. And if Chimney was in his right mind, he’d probably agree with her. But she wasn’t there. She didn’t see the look in Maddie’s eyes, the way she curled her hair (just like his mother did), the way she giggled and called him clever. And Hen wasn’t him. She didn’t feel that feeling- that first flash of “awake” since the night he took a rebar to the skull. He’s insane, probably, he admits that freely. Hen gives him about a hundred different warnings, but the corners of her lips are twitching upwards. She’s wanted this for him for so long, she just has to be sure it’s right.

.

Maddie has never seen Mission Impossible because her abusive ex-husband never let her have any free time for anything, especially not for her own leisure or pleasure, it turns out. He’s hardly known for very long, but it makes him a level of angry that makes him uncomfortable with himself. He doesn’t let show to that, though.

“I’m uh, a bit of a movie buff,” he says nervously, staring down at his hands in his lap, “I can help you catch up.”

She laughs. It feels good to make her laugh.

.

Eventually she asks how he came to love movies to watch, why he watches so many- why, with all the possible stress relieving coping mechanisms in the world, he chose this one.

He tells her about his mom, how even when she was at her sickest and weakest, laying on the couch watching a movie was still something they could do together. It was something that, until the very end, could still make his mother laugh.

It feels good to finally share this with someone. He cries a little when he does. That feels good, too.

.

Maddie has nightmares sometimes. Maddie wakes up screaming in the middle of movie nights, startling so tremendously that she knocks the chinese takeout off the coffee table.

He knows what to do from the very first time; knows not to touch her right away, knows how to ground her with words before hands, knows how to bring her back into the room, back into the present. She doesn’t ask how he’s so good at it out loud, but he can see the question in her eyes. He’s not ready to answer it for her, though. It’s probably okay, because he has a feeling she might have figured out the answer all on her own.

.

He’s very aware that he and Maddie aren’t dating. She’s not ready for that, understandably, and he would never want to make her feel uncomfortable. 

It still feels like something is collapsing when he finds out that she’s pregnant. With her ex-husband’s baby. Her ex-husband that is only her “ex” in the emotional and not legal sense, because he’ll kill her if she serves him with divorce papers and finds out where she is.

He tells her that he’s there for her, whatever she needs, and he means it with his whole heart. It doesn’t stop him feeling so gapingly sad, and he hates himself for that.

.

Maddie has a lot of anxieties about motherhood and she’s not shy about sharing them with him. He doesn’t mind listening to it, and he doesn’t mind sharing all the little things his mother did for him to make him feel loved and safe. He admits that he’s probably not the best person to offer her reassurance on this since he doesn’t actually have any kids himself, but she tells him that she likes hearing about his mom, that it’s helpful because she was such a good one.

“Here,” she suddenly says excitedly, rushing over to him and moving a hand of his to her stomach, “can you feel that? She’s kicking.”

He can’t help but cry, even though it’s not his baby. He also can’t help but think about if his father felt anything or not the first time he felt him kicking in his mother’s belly.

.

Maddie has no idea what she’s going to name her daughter.

He and Buck are sitting on her couch, offering up name suggestions. He feels grossly unqualified to be offering up potential names for this baby. Buck is the baby’s uncle. He’s just someone who has an… intense friendship with the baby’s mother.

Buck, one hundred percent unknowingly, suggests Chimney’s mother’s name and Maddie quickly hushes him.

“Might make a nice middle name, though,” he hears her whisper under her breath. He just looks at her and nods, and wonders how someone he’s only known for a few months has brought happy, touched tears to his eyes so many times.

.

He’s long believed nothing good ever lasts, so as horrifying as it is, it’s not a huge shock when he sees a man in the LA grocery store that he’s been shown many pictures of for the sake of everyone’s protection.

He phones Maddie, then he phones Athena, and then he phones Buck even though he figures word has already gotten back to him by then.

It would be entirely too easy, too obvious for Maddie to start staying with Buck, too easy for Doug to track her down there. No one wants Maddie living alone, though, so she moves in with him.

There’s a restraining order, and a lot of hiding, and a lot of watching movies together on the couch to escape from their terrifying reality for two hours at a time. It feels comforting and familiar and right and wrong all at once.

They’re halfway through an Indiana Jones movie when Maddie has her first contraction.

.

She wants her there with him, too. He lets her destroy one of his hands with pressure, while one of Buck’s hands is getting the same treatment.

Idgie Dianna Buckley comes into the world screaming, and it feels oddly fitting.

“Idgie for the woman who fell in love with another woman and her baby son as if he were her own,” Maddie smiles, exhausted and ecstatic, and Buck looks lost but Howie is yet again crying happy tears; they watched that movie together, “and Dianna for the woman who helped make me feel brave enough for motherhood without me even meeting her.”

He leans down to kiss her on irresistible instinct, and for a moment he’s worried he’s messed everything up, he’s misinterpreted, but when Maddie pulls back it’s with a smile.

“I love you,” she says quietly, and now it’s Buck's turn to weep tears of joy.

.

Doug ends up killing himself, sending a letter to Maddie blaming her in one final act of torment.

He feels just a little bad for feeling positive emotions about another man’s death.

“Is it bad I’m relieved she’ll never have to decide whether to meet her father or not?” Maddie asks timidly, bouncing Idgie in her arms.

“It’s not bad to love your own daughter,” he shrugs, and he hopes it’s enough, “it’s never a bad thing to love your own child.”

.

He’s gotten so much comfort for going back in time with Maddie, from reliving the past. He never knew how much he needed it, to have someone hold his hand and make him finally feel brave enough to face the pain so he can also feel the peace and wistful smiles that come with his mother’s memory. 

The day they sign the papers to officially make Idgie Dianna Buckley, Idgie Dianna Buckley-Han, he decides that forward isn’t that bad of a direction to go in either.

.


End file.
